How to Play Hearts

Hearts is the classic four-player card game where the goal is to avoid points. Every heart you win costs you a point, and the queen of spades costs you thirteen. Lowest score at the end wins. Many of us learned it at the kitchen table or on a long winter evening, and it's just as good today. These are the Hearts rules our free online Hearts game uses, with examples, and we point out the spots where families often play a little differently.

What You Need

• A standard deck of 52 cards, no jokers.
• Four players. Each player plays for themselves; there are no partners.
• Paper and pencil for the score. Online, the score sheet keeps track for you.

In our online game you sit at the bottom of the table (South). The three computer players are West on your left, North across from you, and East on your right.

The Cards and Tricks

Cards rank in the usual order, with aces high: A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. There is no trump suit in Hearts. A spade doesn't beat a diamond; only cards of the suit that was led can win a trick.

A trick is one card from each player, four cards in all. The whole hand is 13 tricks, one for each card you hold.

Dealing

Shuffle and deal the whole deck one card at a time, clockwise, so everyone has 13 cards. Pick up your cards and sort them by suit. It helps to put the suits in alternating colors so a stray club doesn't hide among your spades.

Passing Three Cards

Before any cards are played, each player chooses three cards to pass face down to another player. Everyone picks their three cards first, then all the passes happen at once, so you can't use what you're about to receive. The direction changes every hand:

After the fourth hand, the cycle starts again with a pass to the left. Passing is your chance to get rid of dangerous cards like the queen, king or ace of spades and high hearts. Our Hearts strategy guide has advice on what to pass.

Playing the First Trick

Whoever holds the 2 of clubs must lead it to start the first trick. Play then goes clockwise, to the left. In our game that means you, then West, then North, then East, starting from whoever led.

On the first trick, you may not play a heart or the queen of spades, even if you have no clubs. The only exception is a player whose hand holds nothing but hearts and the queen of spades, which is very rare. This keeps anyone from being stuck with points before the hand has really started.

Following Suit and Winning Tricks

The rules for every trick are simple:

1. Follow suit if you can. If a diamond is led, you must play a diamond if you have one.
2. If you can't follow suit, play anything. This is called a discard, and it's your chance to unload a high heart or the queen of spades onto someone else.
3. The highest card of the suit led wins. Cards of other suits can't win, no matter how high.
4. The winner leads the next trick. They may lead any suit allowed (see breaking hearts below).

Example: Who Wins This Trick?

North leads the 9♦. Then:

• East plays the Q♦.
• You have no diamonds, so you discard the K♥.
• West plays the 4♦.

The queen of diamonds is the highest diamond, so East wins the trick, collects all four cards, and takes 1 point for your K♥. Your king of hearts was a high card, but it couldn't win because hearts weren't led. East leads the next trick.

Breaking Hearts

You can't lead a heart until hearts have been broken, which means a heart has been played on an earlier trick by someone who couldn't follow suit. Once that happens, anyone can lead hearts.

There's one exception: if you're on lead and you hold only hearts, you may lead a heart even if hearts haven't been broken yet.

In our game, playing the queen of spades does not break hearts. Only a heart does. Some families count the queen as breaking hearts too; our rule variations page covers that debate.

Scoring a Hand

When all 13 tricks have been played, each player looks through the tricks they won and counts their penalty cards:

Points are bad. Each hand's points are added to your running total. The jack of diamonds rule is off unless you turn it on in Settings.

Example: Scoring a Sample Hand

At the end of a hand, the tricks hold these penalty cards:

The points add up to 26, as they always do: 13 hearts plus the 13-point queen. If West started the hand with 40 points, West now has 55. North had a perfect hand.

How to Shoot the Moon in Hearts

Here's the twist that makes Hearts exciting. If one player takes all 13 hearts and the queen of spades in the same hand, they have shot the moon. Instead of taking 26 points, the shooter scores 0 and every other player scores 26.

It has to be every single heart. If you take 12 hearts and the queen, and somebody else slipped one heart onto a trick they won, you take 25 points and they take 1. That's why shooting the moon is a gamble.

Example: A Moon Shot

You hold the A♥, K♥, Q♥, J♥, 10♥ and more hearts, plus the A♠ and high clubs. You win the first few tricks with high clubs, catch the queen of spades under your A♠, and then lead your hearts from the top. Nobody can beat them, and nobody manages to win a single heart. At the end you've taken all 13 hearts and the Q♠.

You went from third place to first in a single hand. Some families score a moon shot the other way: the shooter takes 26 points off their own score and everyone else gets nothing. You can choose that in Settings. If the jack of diamonds rule is on, the J♦ still counts −10 for whoever took it, moon or no moon.

Winning the Game

Keep playing hands until, at the end of a hand, at least one player has reached 100 points. The game ends there, and the player with the lowest score wins. If two or more players tie for the lowest score, they share the win. For a shorter game, you can play to 50 instead.

Our Game's Default Rules and Options

Everything above is how our game plays out of the box. If you grew up with different rules, open Settings and look under House rules. You can:

• Play to 50 points instead of 100.
• Allow points on the first trick.
• Let hearts be led at any time, broken or not.
• Score a moon shot as −26 for the shooter instead of +26 for everyone else.
• Count the jack of diamonds as −10.

House rule changes start with your next game. Our Hearts rule variations page explains each one and a few other ways people play.

Helpful Features in Our Game

• Easy, Normal and Hard computer players. They never see your cards.
• Tap a card once to select it, and tap it again to play it.
• A Hint button suggests a card when you're unsure.
• Tap Why? after a computer move to see the reason it played that card.
• Show All Hands after each hand lets you see what everyone held and passed.
• Every game has a deal number, and Replay This Deal lets you try the same cards again.
• Settings for four-color cards (so diamonds and hearts look different) and reduce motion.

If you enjoy trick-taking games and would like to play with a partner, try Spades. It uses the same follow-suit idea, but you bid for tricks instead of avoiding them.

Hearts Rules at a Glance

• Four players, 52 cards, 13 each. Aces high, no trump.
• Pass three cards: left, right, across, then no pass.
• The 2♣ leads the first trick. No hearts or Q♠ on the first trick.
• Follow suit if you can; otherwise play anything. Highest card of the suit led wins.
• Hearts can't be led until one has been played, unless you hold only hearts.
• Each heart is 1 point; the Q♠ is 13.
• Take all hearts and the Q♠ to shoot the moon: you get 0, everyone else gets 26.
• Game ends when someone reaches 100. Lowest score wins.